


Lunar Eclipse

by Elle6179



Category: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Growing Up, Leaving Home
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25852753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elle6179/pseuds/Elle6179
Summary: An albino Vulpix that was left in the dark for seemingly ages now gets to see the world with her own eyes. Will she lift the veil up from under her superiors, or will she suffocate under the new pressures of a less simple, yet exciting, life?
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

“Luna, wake up.”  
  
Two furry white creatures stood in front of Luna, both covering her usual scenery-- a cave entrance that for her would lead to the icy arctic. Many Ninetales would kill for her parent’s den, she was quite lucky. Her home was roomy enough for eight, and only their small family of three had to make it work.   
  
The two creatures were both snow-white Ninetales. The only differing traits between them being her mother’s yellow eyes, and her father’s purple. Both synchronously blinked at her; she was almost creeped out.   
  
“Luna, are you okay, or?” her father asked.

“Y-yeah, sorry.”  
  
As a Vulpix, Luna had to attend the same lessons all others on the mountain did. Why was she obligated to do so only because of a shared species? She had no clue, but arguing it wasn’t going to bring change. Begrudgingly, her muzzle shaped a yawn as she finally got up to start the day.   
  
“I got you breakfast, but you will have to hurry. Lessons are in a bit, dear!” her mother turned and dropped some Oran Berries into her small hay bed.   
  
Luna’s father had already left for ‘Ninetales duties’, and Mom didn’t seem to be attentive on watching her eat, instead doing her own ‘N i n e t a l e s d u t i e s’. Like napping. When asked how that is a duty, Luna once quoted her saying _‘I’m being prepared for anything that could happen.’_   
  
“Welp, I’m off Mom.”   
  
“Love you dear! Be safe!”

* * *

On the way out, Luna was greeted with the color she’d seen all her life: white. The color of the constant blizzards, the color of her family and peers, the color of herself. The homely caves served as a distraction, however, but now that was gone. Thankfully, due to her Ice-typing, she didn’t have to worry about getting constantly hurt by the snowy blitz. She had to worry about _others_ getting constantly hurt by the snowy blitz.

To anyone else, they’d wonder why Luna took the exact steps through the snow covered ground that went up to her muzzle, but she miserably walked the memorized route around the peak of the mountain to where her class was held.  
  
She could see through blizzards better than most others; yet another advantage point she had in her Ice-typing.   
  
Suddenly, her body was stopped mid-step. She couldn’t see it, but her brain was covered in a psychic pink, awakening a new sense of buzzing in her mind. 

“Is that you, Luna?” a mature voice asked her from seemingly inside her head. Luna knew who it was; her teacher. Always with the psychic tricks.

While Vulpix were not given lessons on psychic-abilities, fully-grown Ninetales on the other hand were given the knowledge. That was something Luna felt was unfair, figuring out where they, the Vulpixes, are in the middle of a blizzard is difficult.

The culture on the mountain revolved around being stuck there and Luna hated the “optimistic melancholy”. 

“Yes, miss. Sorry that I am a bit late,” Luna replied  
  
“Oh, you aren’t that far behind. It’s just that we are in a panic. See, a random traveler is in big trouble on the mountain. As protocol states, all students should stay put to make it easier on the Ninetale scouts.”

‘Miss’ could almost hear Luna’s annoyance. Luna huffed on her side of the mental connection, which made Miss feel bad, she knew what this was about.  
  
“Miss, don’t we train to rescue Pokemon on the mountain? Isn’t that like, _all_ we do as a species except look ‘beautiful’’?”   
  
“Well, remember that you are a Vulpix, and we’re grown-ups- Hey! We have gone through this a plenty of times, Luna. Stay. Put.”

“ _Fine,”_ Luna seethed through their psychic-link.

Luna laid down in the snow. It was as comfortable as her hay bed, if not more. Just had to scoot around all of the more icy parts.   
  
This was a common part of Vulpix life on Mt. Corona. While she and the other small vixens waited for the rescue teams to save any bold, and likely stupid, traveler shuffling up the mountain; they waited patiently for the freedom to _move_.

After all, if they were moving. how would the unseasoned Psychics track down the difference between a small Pokemon of their own species and a Rhyperior?

What made Luna all the more spiteful were the stories they’d hear. Things of wonders! And people in danger for more than their own imbecilic curiosity. Who would want to go up to a place only wandered by people there to make sure people like themselves aren’t going up it? She heard of ‘mystery dungeons’, maybe they were after one of those?  
  
Luna didn’t want to just stay up on the relatively safe mountain for her entire life, she wanted to explore for Arceus’ sake! Her maw almost foamed with her rage at how she was expected to live her life. One cold desolate land to another at a short distance.   
  
A shadow sprinted past Luna. With no psychic resting on her, she could turn to look at the direction it was going. She never learned much of going _down_ the mountain, but maybe this was her shot? If she was fast enough, maybe she’d be able to find the bottom of the mountain.   
  
Luna didn’t think she’d likely succeed, but like a lost puppy, she followed this Ninetales to the best of her ability. Problem: the shadow was already far gone. She was now blind again.   
  
Regardless of how safe it was, she sprinted in the direction she thought it was going and her heart skipped a beat. Suddenly the amount of her paws touching the ground went from two to zero. 

After several seconds of feeling rushing air she closed her eyes.

* * *

  
  


Luna woke up to a new shadowy figure, one she’d never seen before.   
  
“Wake… up! You’re so heavy!” a boy’s voice rang in her ears. She peeked one open and found herself staring into the side of the mountain, though it was a red hue, not cold and dark.   
  
Luna gave herself another second to think before heaving herself awake, bounding out of what she was stuck in.   
  
“W-who are you?!” she squeaked. He was a creature she’d never seen before- a green and elegantly shaped Pokemon.   
  
“I’m Kaliente the Snivy, an explorer from down South. Are you one of those Ninetales Guardians, I think they’re called?” he seemed to blank out.

“Oh, are you seriously injured?!” Kaliente startled Luna, who quickly shook her head no. _‘Did you really need to be so loud?’_

“Good,” the explorer noted, “I’ll need your help.. This dungeon is hard.”

Kaliente held up a hand to his mouth before creeping to their exit.  
  
Luna’s eyes followed Kaliente’s silent movement, and she noticed the room. It seemed very symmetrical, and there was one path to leave it. Above them was a hole big enough to where she couldn’t see it. ' _How did I survive a fall like that?_ '  
  


She checked where she was now crouching. It seemed that a bunch of snow covered her fall, though that couldn’t be it. That wouldn’t be enough.

“Agh!” Kaliente groaned. Luna now saw what he was doing. He was fighting an angry light-yellow quadrupedal Pokemon.   
  
“Numel are tough, eh?” Kaliente huffed before lashing a Vine Whip at the Numel’s face. Luna was confused at why they were fighting.

“H-hey, N… Numel? Yeah, Numel, why are you fighting him? Please stop!” Luna yelled, only for her words to be met with an Ember appearing in the middle of her eyesight. She instinctively jumped to the left and gave an annoyed puff.

“It’s no use Vulpix, we’re in a Mystery Dungeon! Fight back!” the Snivy jumped again to dodge the Numel’s seemingly endless fire attacks, with Kaliente retaliating with a Vine Whip every few jumps.

Luna noticed the pattern and identified that the Numel often staggered a little after being hit, and she hatched a plot.

“Kaliente, don’t jump in circles!” Luna couldn’t be sure the Numel wouldn’t understand her, but was willing to bet on it. 

  
“T-that’s a little hard, it’s like a machine! But, as you wish!” the Snivy stood and stared down the Numel, who pushed down their paw, enraged. 

  
Luna slowly tried to move behind the Numel, each step aching her senses of danger. Fire is scary, after all, despite how little she’d seen it. She’d heard tales, too.

However, Kaliente was getting worn out. His jumps were going lower, no matter how aerodynamic his body seemed. The enemy, on the other hand, seemed to be going _faster_.

“Gotcha!” the Snivy yelled in triumph. He caught himself on his good foot and sprung closer to the Numel’s face, who was too surprised to react quick enough. 

Luna winced from how hard that smack seemed, but this was her opportunity. She used an Icy Wind against Numel’s side, which was powerful enough to topple the staggered Pokemon. Ultimately, ending the fight.

“Phew,” the two said in unison, one noticeably more worse for wear.   
  
“Say, have you ever been in a mystery dungeon before, Luna?”   
  
“Nope, only heard of some stories. We… don’t really leave the mountain much. If at _all_.”

Kaliente seemed a bit intrigued but decided against intruding.  
  
“Well, the biggest thing to note is that dungeons seem smaller on the outside than how big they are. I think you fell from up there, right? I heard a scream before trying to stop your fall with my vines. I was partially successful.”   
  
“T-thanks. And why are they bigger on the inside?”   
  
Kaliente shrugged. “No clue, I just want to find treasures that you can find in ‘em. Let me help you get outta here, and I will help in return; neither of us want to be fighting a bunch of Fire-types alone.”

“Agreed,” Luna sniffled. She was obviously less experienced with fighting than he was, but, hopefully, they could make it work.

“I’m just going to follow you,” Luna stayed in the Snivy’s shadow. He didn’t seem to mind too much, but his anxiety grew a tad.

“Well first let’s check this corridor. Dungeons are filled with them,” Kaliente noted. He made sure to peek his head past the exit before he was satisfied with the check.  
  
“Alright Luna, it seems clear for now. We are looking for the stairs I used to go down here, and hopefully we’ll be out quickly.”   
  
Luna nodded. Kaliente quickly sped down the hallway, surprising Luna, but she was quick to start running herself. It was weird for her to not run on snow or ice, instead on warmer ground, but she wasn’t a kit. Didn’t take her long to learn her light-weight speed.

_‘This is much more fun than running to school!’_

Kaliente didn’t pay her much mind while dashing down seemingly random passageways. It seemed that after he fought a few Pokemon on his way to the deepest depths of the dungeon, where he found her, the dungeon was clear of enemies. 

Fine to slow down.  
  


“So Luna, you don’t leave the mountain much you said?”

“Well, I never have, rarely any Corona-born Vulpix have.”

“Have you seen… trees? Grass? The ocean? I don’t think I could live a life without seeing those.”

Luna nervously laughed as the two slowed down. They talked as they detected no danger.

“Do you have any friends here, Luna?” 

“One. They’re named Rebecca. There are only about five of us Vulpix in training right now.”

“Training? For what?”

Luna sighed. “The Ninetales don’t like foreign Pokemon on the mountain, so we train to guide travelers, like you, off it…”

Kaliente seemed a bit pale. _‘But… the one I saw seemed so friendly before I entered this dungeon… And they ran squealing when I said there was a dungeon.’_

“Did you know this dungeon existed? It seems like the people on this mountain don’t, including you, but it’s marked on common travelling maps.” 

Luna pondered on that for a moment. “Well, maybe we never asked the intentions of the visitors.’ I don’t know, I never agreed with the Ninetales practices anyways.”

Luna mulled over his words before a question arose. “Why would travellers go to a dungeon here anyways?”

“Treasure… that I discovered was already taken today.”

  
He wasn’t surprised to find no treasure at the end. If anything, he almost regretted choosing this place to dungeon-dive. Yet, he couldn’t find it in his heart to do so when if he wasn’t there, Luna would likely have been in much more trouble.

The two stayed eerily quiet as they moved up several floors with no problems.

He moved up ragged stairs, seemingly the dungeon was still. Each floor they went up she got a little more ragged, and he got more confused. Where were the enemies?! It was _hell_ to go down. He decided to be thankful. Luna seemed to not be very fit in a warmer climate, not that she was expected to be.

Kaliente looked back and gave himself a breather, she was following with no troubles, except maybe exhaustion. 

“Alright, we’re almost out.”  
  
Luna took her own sigh of relief before wagging her tail. It was so hot down here! She noticed how Kaliente no longer ran, and now he only walked the final stretch. Despite being more tired, she seemed more full of energy-- how could she not be? Finally back to the colder outskirts. 

Maybe she didn’t dislike this mountain as much as she thought. It was cozy for her type, after all. She didn’t get much time to dwell on it as Kaliente turned to speak.

“We’re out, finally. I’ll stay here for a moment, the cold isn’t to my liking,” he leaned against the cave exit wall. 

Luna thought this person was cool. Her relatives were nice people, but, she didn’t want to be around them her entire life. She wanted to explore and meet more people like Kaliente, and help more than the oddball rescue on Corona.  
  
The mountain had clouded her senses for more than enough time. Her limited vision, the screeching of incessant wind, the non-existent smells, and the cold wet touch of snow. It was all she knew. 

Luna turned to the Snivy who was resting their eyes. She blinked before tapping a paw onto his side.

“Hm? Anything weird?” Kaliente asked.

“... No.”  
  
“Okay then. Why are you touching me then?”   
  
“I’ve never felt anything that isn’t snow, rock or fur. You have scales right?”   
  
“U-uh, yea.”

“They feel strange, but smooth,” she deducted before finally taking her leg off of his side.

“Thanks. I guess. Well then, is there anyone out there? I bet a famous Ninetales will be coming to pick you up and help me, hm?”  
  
Luna nodded and sat down. The more she thought about her experiences she had today, the more she wanted.   
  
“Hey Kaliente. Where are you from?”

“Oh, I’m from Purrc City. A place filled with all kinds of cool shops, and cheap places to live. We are by an ocean, so we have lots of paths to go through the continent.”  
  
“I see,” she seemed starry eyed.   
  
Luna envisioned those flying creatures she’d been told about gliding across endless water, though it was mostly ice in her envisioning of the ocean.

“What else is out there? What is that grass stuff you mentioned?” Luna asked like a kit.

“It’s… Really? See the color of my scales? Imagine parts of that but, like, suuuper thin! And fields of that poking from grass-”

“Hello you two,” Miss walked through the endless blizzards with an awkward smile, “I’m here to get you two out of here.”

Kaliente was much more excited than Luna.   
  


* * *

Luna was next to two of her classmates. To her right, Rebecca, and to her left, Gianna.

“Luna, were you trying to escape?” Rebecaca asked. She had a downcast expression that made Luna’s heart ache.

“Y-yes-”

“Pfft,” Gianna chimed in. “Why are you so insistent on this, Luna? This mountain has everything any Ice-type needs, and we need to protect it.”

“W-well, I don’t want much of a part in that…”

Gianna huffed. “No skin off my back. Just waiting for ‘Teach to return.”

Rebecca sighed. “Luna, if you want… I can try to tell your parents that you left and what you want to say, and you can go with that new friend of yours.”

Luna’s tail drooped unexpectedly. Leaving seemed hard, but people like Gianna made staying tough.

“R-Rebecca… How would I know the right choice?”

Gianna tapped Luna’s back. 

“We all know that you’ve wanted to leave for so long, this shouldn’t be so tough for ya.”

“My parents-”

Rebecca chimed in this time. “They will be fine. If you don’t take this chance you might not get another chance for a decade. We aren’t too far from them, the blizzard is weak…”

  
  


Kaliente was helped by the psychic using Ninetales all the way to the edge of the mountain, and Luna was left behind. Miss didn’t worry about her, she was being led by her friends to the top of Corona, after all.

“Kaliente!”

Miss turned around and was astonished. The white-furball skidded across ice only to be amazed by the view many of her species wouldn’t see.

  
  


“Why are you out here, Luna…”  
  
“I’m leaving,” Luna didn’t take in the sights just yet, instead homing in on Miss’s frown.

“You’re a good student but your ambitions don’t match what you were taught, I suppose. I’m starting to think that holding you up on that mountain is gonna be impossible, though why would you choose this over your friends?”  
  
Luna kept quiet, for she was going to keep up the memories of her friends locked up tight.   
  
“Everyone makes choices that go against what is expected of us, Luna. But remember: we may not accept you back all the way if you return here.”   
  
Miss left the astonished Kaliente’s side and walked next to Luna. Miss gave her a last hip check before walking past. This was not the first time this happened, and she knew it would not be the last.

“Bye Luna. I-I hope to see you again. And I’ll tell your parents for you, don’t feel the need to come back.” _‘It’s always hard.’_

  
Luna didn’t dare turn around, she couldn’t feel the weight of her actions just yet, not when she was so close to making the first step of her new life.   
  
“Kaliente… Can you guide me to Purrc City?”


	2. Chapter 2

Kaliente brandished his scarf and held it in the moonlight. He closed one eye and inspected it for grime. Once he was positive that it was clean, he wrapped it around his neck and rested his head on a long log. 

“Luna, are you asleep already?” Kaliente twisted his head to his left, where Luna was resting against a cold, hard boulder. He heard her snores and sighed.  
‘Welp, all alone right now. At night, in the dark. Nothing to worry about, yeah.’

He shivered. His eyes wouldn’t shut, not just due to general anxieties. He was scared of the dark, much to Luna’s laughter. 

‘H-hey! It’s more common than you think. That is what uh, my parents told me.’

Surprisingly to Kaliente, that only drove more laughter from her.

“Such sass,” he huffed. His eyes widened as he realized he said that aloud, he was very lonely.

Kaliente decided to recount the events of the last several days in his head. If he couldn’t get more comfort from Luna now, maybe past-Luna would make him chuckle. 

\----------

The white and green duo started their trek through the cold woods without much chatter. Kaliente was a bit woozy with the sparks he saw fly from Luna and Miss’s heads. It seemed he wasn’t alone, as Luna trudged through the light snow without a single peep.

It was all silent until a Pidove flew from a branch past Luna. “Aaah!” Luna yelped before jumping to the side, Kaliente rushing to her ‘rescue’.

“Oh, it was just a bird. Those suckers can startle you easily if you’re tense,” Kaliente said before turning back to the uncarved road ahead of them.  
‘She’s really that tense though, hm. I should do something about it. If I can.’

Kaliente slowed down as Luna now walked to his side. Luna gave him a puzzled expression as he put a hand to his chin. 

“So,” Kaliente started, “what do you want to do when we get to Purcc? I know you want to explore, but well, where are you gonna stay?”

Luna’s face contorted into a lifeless dull. “Uhhhhhhhh…” Luna left her mouth hanging just like her mind lifted off into the stratosphere. 

‘Okay, that didn’t help at all, I think.’ Kaliente put a hand on her head and slowly patted. Luna’s face was full of color once more. “It’s okay, you don’t need to worry much about it. You can stay with me.. for some time.”

Her mind ignored that last part. She wagged her tail and instinctively licked his cheek.  
“Thanks!”

‘Okay, we’re gonna have to do something about that random affection. She can’t just go around licking people.’

Luna’s shy demeanor had changed into her adventurous side. She pranced ahead of Kaliente towards a hill. Once out of his stupor, Kaliente ran over. “W-wait for me! You don’t know where you’re going!”

Luna stopped at the top of the hill, but not for him. Over the hill, she could see the trees far ahead. She could feel that they were almost out of the chilly climate. It was getting warmer and warmer with every hour they marched. 

The gradual warmth didn’t stop her from being happy, for she saw much more of the world than the ground view provided. They seemed to be headed for the middle of two mountains if they kept going North, but the mountains were so large that going around didn’t seem plausible.

“Alright Luna, we should get going.” She didn’t move.Kaliente deadpanned.  
‘Well, I shouldn’t hamper her pureness. At least for now. I’ll introduce the stresses of life later, for now, she can enjoy this.’ 

He took another moment to ponder how weird the Corona Mountain tribe seemed in comparison to the rest of the world. Notably, how they treated their own kind; how they think their kids have to follow after them, and the rest of the world seems eager to let everyone go. “Ah well.”

Kaliente decided now was a good time for a break since Luna didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave. “Fine, let’s wait here and eat. It is midday anywhoo.”

\----------

Luna noticed Kaliente’s lack of supplies soon after their departure from Corona, but it seemed that he knew how to live off the land anyways.

“What are we eating tonight…” Kaliente tapped his chin for an obnoxious amount of time. Luna was curled up by the time he had figured out the local food sources. 

“Well,” Kaliente turned to her, “oh, you’re bored easily. Hm.” 

Luna peeped an eye open at him at the promise of food. Kaliente continued, “We can find Oran Berry trees around here, if I’m correct. It is a much warmer climate here than where we were even a week before.”

It was getting dark out, but with Luna by his side, he hoped he wouldn’t wuss out and choose to starve for a night.

They traveled, hunted, slept, and repeated that cycle for four days. On the fifth day, they reached the doorsteps on the impasse. Kaliente was a tad nervous at the prospect of entering a dungeon, which he hadn’t warned Luna about in advance.

Kaliente pointed to the valley and tapped Luna’s back, who was pretending to scout for berries.

“Okay lazy, I haven’t told you yet but uh, soon we’re going to be going through a dungeon,” Kaliente said. 

“Oh? We’ll probably be fine.” 

The Snivy repeatedly blinked before shaking his head.  
“Just because I cleared out all of the enemies in your first dungeon experience doesn’t mean they’re all something you just waltz through with abandon!” 

Luna flinched a bit from his scalding hot tone. She sighed and sat down. Kaliente gnashed his teeth and joined her.

“Look, I didn’t mean to be so harsh. What I’m trying to say is that you can’t be cocky. Say, why don’t I teach you the ‘Rules to Dungeon Exploring’?”

“And who made those, you?”

“Er, no.” Kaliente wished he was as famous as the creator of the commandments that guided every single explorer on the globe. Kaliente straightened himself up and lightly coughed. “The rules were created by the single most famous Pokemon in the exploration field, a Lycanroc named Kardi.”

Luna let her jaw open as she tried to remain intensely focused on this history lesson. She never got to learn much about exploring before, but the times she did? They reinvigorated her desire to get up and explore! 

In one seemingly planned move, Kaliente smoothly stood up and closed his eyes. He wrapped his left arm around his back and pointed to the sky before finally speaking.

“Kardi was the first Pokemon to connect the worlds guilds together, which would create the Guild Alliance. If you wanted to make a guild somewhere, you’d have to join the legion that is nobly tasked with keeping peace worldwide.”

Luna saw his grin and giggled; he surely was enjoying this. “Alright Mr. Kaliente, but what are the rules?”

“That’d be Mr. Dungeon Explorer Kaliente to you.” 

Crickets.

Kaliente carried on. “Rule one: go with a buddy. This ensures that if one of you falls, another can do something.” Kaliente put a hand to his chest and feigned his fall from grace. “And that’s where you’d tell someone else that I am probably dead!” 

Luna’s snout shriveled up. That was a mortifying thought. “Okay… Rule two?”

“Ah yes, rule two, my favorite rule,” the Snivy straightened himself out and walked over to a tree. “Rule two is to bring enough food for four. That way, the two of you will be able to last in the long-term.”

Luna thought that was a great idea, though one question popped into her mind. “Isn’t that a lot to carry? Especially with how… I dunno, you might need other things?”

“Aha! And that, of course, is why you’ll be carrying all of our apples, thanks in advance.”

Luna glared at Kaliente. He threw up his hands in defense before she relented. 

“Humpf, well I’ll be waiting for you to give me those apples, I’m going to do some Vulpix Duties.” Luna curled up and pretended to sleep. She peeked open an eye however, expecting to hear the final rule.

“Fine. Rule three, the final rule: Know the dungeon. This includes knowing what Pokemon you may encounter, what items you can find naturally, and how long the dungeon is,” Kaliente put a hand to his chin. “I don’t remember much about the upcoming dungeon except that it’s full of monkey Pokemon.”

“What’s a monkey?” Luna asked.

Kaliente face-palmed. ‘This is gonna be a looong briefing.’

\----------

The Snivy triumphantly walked in front of Luna, trying to show his confidence. If he wasn’t confident, why would she, a less experienced vixen, be assured?

“Alright,” Kaliente froze in his tracks. The two mountains were larger than he anticipated, both towering over a very weird forest in the middle of them. He couldn’t see very well due to shadows, but he didn’t want to wait until near sundown. “We’re here.”

Luna noticed that the vibe of the forest was off. While it was dark outside of it, and certainly trees might make it darker, it seemed like something made the inside pitch-black. 

“Why is it so dark?” Luna asked.

“Oh, dungeons can be like that sometimes. Unnaturally dark or light, it’s just how it is.”

“Didn’t seem that way in the… first dungeon we were in.”

“That’s because I already explored it, if we stuck around for a while the dungeon would reset and it’d have turned dark again. When we go in, if anyone else walks by, they’ll see the dungeon clearly.”

Luna pondered on how dungeons worked in general as they walked closer.  
“I’ll just follow you, I guess.”

Kaliente took a big breath of air and looked around. The trees were abnormally tall with some blue circles he could see in a few scattered around. “Thank Arceus,” he breathed in relief.

“Hm?”

“Some of the trees in this dungeon have Oran berries. That makes me feel much safer. I was worri-” Kaliente shut his trap. 

“Did you not feel confident before? You seem experienced…” 

“Y-yeah, I am. Don’t worry.”

Luna worried but kept her mouth shut. She wanted to get this dungeon over with, because it was freaking her out.

“So how long is this dungeon?”

“Er, I don’t have my map, but I think it’s three floors long, and it has a lot of birds and monkeys. I mean look up.”

Luna looked up and saw several Pidove flying from the mountains to each other. “Why don’t they just settle on one of them? Seems weird to jump back-to-back.”

“If you stay around dungeons enough, they say you go crazy. That or, I dunno, each one has something unique, maybe nests?”

“I see. Well, uh, let’s get this over with.”

Kaliente silently agreed and walked forward into the darkness. Luna was close enough to be breathing down on his neck; her breath was not unpleasantly warm, but unpleasantly cold. He felt a bit of resistance against the dark which gave a rush of even colder air against his scales. He winced.

The two closed their eyes. Kaliente didn’t notice, but he held Luna close as he felt close to fainting. The two took steps against their bodies’ will.

When they reopened their eyes they were met with a new world. Luna groggily wiggled her body, accidentally puffing up much of her fur. Kaliente’s laughter brought them back to full capacity.

“W-what’s funny?”

“You look like as fluffy as a Flareon! Hahaha!”

Luna pouted and left him to his own devices. She saw that the trees were now much lower than the exterior would suggest, and the forest seemed lively. Kaliente joined her and felt like he was in a supermarket.

All members of the Pidove line flew from tree to tree, some bumped into each other before flying off again. It felt off to Luna. They didn’t seem to notice them, weirdly enough. The small room only had one pathway, so he followed it with Luna trailing behind. 

Luna took more time to look around than him. Light colored bark carried branches of colorful leaves, many of which they stepped on, creating crunchy sounds.

“S-so uh, this is it, alright. We need to find the stairs and get out,” Kaliente said, but Luna felt he was talking more to himself than her. 

Luna patted his back as best as a quadruped could and whispered, “it’ll be alright.”

“W-what’re ya playing at?” Kaliente spoke with a different accent than what she often heard. It seemed more brazen.

“You’re nervous, don’t act like you’re immune to pressure.”

“Hmpf, u-uh yeah. You’re right. Alright so, I see a red creature down the hall. I didn’t expect the trees to seem so… neatly placed. Though I think we can still squeeze between them.”

Luna silently agreed and noticed some cracks between the trees, and notably, stairs only two lanes down. Being small, she figured they might be able to get past some of the barriers with some effort. She tried to swell up her lungs with cold energy and puff it out, lightly freezing the tree’s bark. “Try hitting that.”

Kaliente was confused but listened. He used a Vine Whip on the frozen spot. It seemed to fall right off. That created a hole large enough for her to slip by, even with how congestive the trees were. 

Before she could cheese her way to the stairs, the tree grew back at an insane rate.  
“Shoot. Well, let’s go to the probably fiery creature of death,” Luna joked, but she was shaking.

Kaliente realized that what he could identify as a Pansear had noticed them through noise, and now slowly got closer. The duo jumped back while the monkey stood in the middle of the hall. They stood on their toes and sniffed before running away.

Kaliente exhaled and turned to Luna, who squeezed her eyes shut.  
“We’re fine,” he whispered breathlessly.

Luna squeaked and shivered.  
“Okay, let’s get out of here, seriously,” she growled. Luna started walking ahead of the surprised Snivy, now taking the lead.

The Vulpix marched down hall after hall, several Pidoves squawking at her on the way, putting them both on edge. Kaliente looked out for Oran Trees while she moved on spite for the dungeon.

“Okay, we’re at the stairs,” Luna announced. Kaliente seemed excited, only… two more floors left. He’d heard they only get tougher the further you get.

Without warning, she scurried up the magically stairway with Kaliente rushing after her. Luna felt determined to face whatever was in the dungeon, no matter how threatening.


End file.
